Enigmatic
Blackfoot Identifications
East of the Mississippi
and the
Piedmont Siouan of Virginia and North Carolina

By Linda Carter

Tutelo1
EnglishIsi
foot
asepihiye
blacken
Isi asepihiye
Blackfoot

Sissipaha - A former small
tribe of North Carolina, presumably Siouan, from their alliance
and associations with known Siouan tribes. They must have
been an important tribe at one time, as Haw River, the chief
head stream of Cape Fear river, derives its name from them,
and the site of their former village, known in 1728 as Haw
Old Fields, was noted as the largest body of fertile land
in all that region. It was probably situated about the present
Saxapahaw on Haw River, in the lower part of Alamance County,
North Carolina. -- Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin
30.

If this huge settlement in the Haw river valley was called 'Isi
Asepihiye' and the English heard it, they would likely slur all
the double vowels. English speakers have trouble pronouncing the
double vowels common to Native languages.. They also have difficulting
accenting even numbered syllables the way native languages are
generally spoken. It's quite likely they'd drop the initial 'i'
sound. Given those assumptions,

isi asepihiye = sissipaha

I think this makes for an exceptionally 'clean' corruption. It
also makes sense as a name when you consider that the Haw river
valley is the largest fertile plain in the region. The people
there were great, prosperous farmers. Native farmers used slash
and burn agriculture. Hence the emphasis on blackened feet. That's
where their prosperity came from, the crux of their economy. From
the archeological evidence, they were a very dense population.
Epidemics spread through them like wildfire (which is documented).
Then, once the economy switched to the fur trade in order to compete
in the European-imposed arms race, agriculture lost its importance
economically.

The name Blackfoot would then have evoked memories of a much
kinder and gentler past. Something a people facing chaos and obvlivion
would have treasured. Perhaps that's why that name has been preserved
in so many families for the past three hundred years.

The word “Blackfoot” has been carried
in a small but distinct group of families that derived east of
the Mississippi, and who could have no logical connection to the
Blackfoot nation of the Plains. I would like to demonstrate
that there is a distict pattern of surnames and origins to this
group, and that they hark back to an historic group of tribes
by way of much intriguing evidence.

I am in communication, at this point, with approximately five
hundred families with this identification,. The incidence of surnames
and locations that coincide with Eastern Siouan Indian families
of the NC/VA Piedmont is very high.

For example, in a six week period, between December 16, 2002
and February 4th 2003, I heard from 18 different people with this
Blackfoot ID in their families. Of them, 50% had names
which occur among families believed or known to be VA/NC Piedmont
Siouan descended. Eighty-one percent had surnames associated
with VA/NC families believed or known to be Indian descended.
Thirty one percent named these ancestors' place of origin as Virginia
or NC. Ninety-three percent were from states frequently mentioned
by Piedmont Siouan researchers as migration paths for Piedmont
Siouan descendants, OH, WV, TN, IN, SC, VA, NC, SC, Al MS, PA,
IL.

The names reported during this six week period that also occur
among families believed to be Piedmont Siouan are:

Day
Williams
Jones

Scott
Lane
Anderson

White
Matthews

Day Family of Ohio

Jones/Smith Family of Indiana

The other names reported during this period that are found among
NC/VA families believed to be Indian descended are:

Minor
Critchfield
Williamson

Smith
Jennings
Thompson

Moss
Lee
Turner

There have been objections raised to the theory that the Blackfoot
ID in families deriving east of the Mississippi are Eastern Siouan.
This objection has an alternate theory that this ID is the result
of the popularity of the western, Siksika, Blackfoot performers
in the Wild West shows of the 1890s, making their tribal name
a household word. So, the theory goes, families who had either
Native blood they knew nothing about, but wanted to give a name
to, or, families with some degree of African blood they were trying
to disavow, borrowed the name Blackfoot.

If this were the case, then there would be a geographical source
traceable to the 1890s. With these families, however, the geographical
sources clearly traces back to Colonial days, with many of these
Blackfoot ID'd families migrating to other states as early as
the 1740's.

Between 1740 and 1780, there was a Blackfoot Town, MD documented
in what is now Dagsboro, DE (the border changed). Interestingly,
in 1743, there was a well-documented uprising of the Tutelo (Piedmont
Siouan) and the Seneca against the British in that vicinity. This
does demonstrate that this identification was found on the east
coast in Colonial times, with an association to the Piedmont Siouan.
I've also heard from other researchers of documentation they saw,
but didn't note the source for. One was of the "Blackfoot
of the Dan" (a river in the VA/NC Piedmont). Another, which
may be in Colonial records held in England, was a reference to
a group of tribes coming to the VA colonial government, stating
that they were banding together for strength and were calling
themselves the Blackfoot. I've yet to find these sources and would
appreciate word if anyone does find them.

Let me deal chronologically with what’s
known about the village or tribe, the Sissipaha, which I believe
translates as “Blackfoot.” The Sissipaha are associated with the
Shakori and Eno branches of the Piedmont Siouan family or confederation
of tribes, which were extremely early casualties of English encroachment
and simultaneous conflict with the Iroquois.

Perhaps the most influential branch
at time of contact was the Occaneechi, whose language was the
trade language of the region. They controlled the Roanoke
trade routes of the Piedmont. In 1674 they agreed to assist
Nathaniel Bacon in his pursuit of a Susquehannock remnant. Bacon
turned on the Occaneechi unexpectedly (in a sucker punch, if you
will) and destroyed their village on an island in the Roanoke
in what is now Clarksville, VA.